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Overview

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Description

An exhibition about the Norwegian flag and its proposals, both official and created in the relation to this whole project.

The first exhibition of the project called “Utforsking av Norges flagg” (Eng. Explorations in the Norwegian flag) included:

A timeline of the historical development of the Norwegian flag, including official suggestions from various periods.

An installation presenting all the proposals of personal flags made in workshops, related to the project, at diverse schools around Oslo.

A black wall written with white chalk with all the diverse words selected by kids in those workshops to describe Norway.

An interactive installationcalled “Endre”, where the current Norwegian flag could be explored by the visitors.

An interactive installation where visitors were allowed to develop their own flag, or see the flag designed by others.

A computer with a website page open for comments by visitors.

An artwork called “Memoria” consisting in a window of the gallery covered by a piece of wood engraved with information about the show as well as a hole related to the Norwegian flag. This wood was taken from garbage, and was used before to cover a window after the terrorist attack in Oslo, by an ultranationalist Norwegian. Six years after, several windows in the area of the bombing are still covered with same wood.

During the exhibition the first urban intervention of the project was installed in Torggata, Oslo and we presented the project to kids from the German School.

The exhibition was mounted with open doors during Oslo Open and closed during Oslo Art Weeked.

PRESS (selection)

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Utforsking av Norges flagg

Explorations in the Norwegian Flagg

The first flag related to Norway dates back to the monarch periods of the XIV century. Since then, different flags saw the sky in a process which carried out several debates, publications and proposals, including a green and grey one promoted by Christian Frederik in 1814, just a few months before the inclusion of an article in the second constitution expressing that Norway should have its own flag determined by law. The flag was selected in 1821, but its complete adoption in land and all seas wasn’t until the beginning of the next century, in which it was also banned during the German occupation of Norway. After those years, the use of the flag has grown exponentially as well as immigration. According to SSB, in 2016 more than 12% of the total population is currently member of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway.
As flags, people and lands never stand still, and thus not history.
From its origins in 2012 and as a reaction to the atrocious attacks of the previous year, antipodes café began a deep study in the history of Norway and exploring in the main national symbol, creating in this way an art project about identity, pluralism and democracy, based in:
a. workshops for kids
b. urban intervention
c. exhibitions
d. open dialog in media
e a website
f. digital platform for explorations
g. artworks
h. a publication